Magdi Wahba
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Magdi Wahba (1925-1991) was an Egyptian university professor, author, Johnsonian scholar, translator, and lexicographer.
He was born in Alexandria in 1925 the son of a high court judge and later cabinet minister. His mother had been educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and Oxford University. The grandson of a Prime Minister he belonged to the Egyptan aristocracy of the time but was nonetheless a member of the communist party in his youth. He was a graduate of Cairo University and the Sorbonne where he obtained a Diploma in High Studies in International Law in Paris (1947). He decided to pursue his interests in English literature and went to Oxford University and received his B.Litt and D.Phil in 1957.
From 1957-1966 and 1970-1980 Dr. Wahba taught English Literature at Cairo University, Egypt. He continued supervising countless PhD students as emeritus professor. After his death, the English Department's library at Cairo University was named after him.
He also served for four years from 1966-1970 as the Undersecretary of State to the Ministry of Culture for Egypt where he organized in 1967 the Cairo Millennium to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the city of Cairo. The event is considered by many as one of the great cultural event to occur in recent Egyptian history. It included scholars from all over the world including academics such as Bernard Lewis notwithstanding his sympathies to Israel.
His key contributions to literature include some of the only English translations of Egyptian authors Naguib Mahfouz and Taha Hussein. He also edited existing versions of the authors' works in English. He also introduced to the Arabic reader the first Arabic translation of Rasselas in 1959 and The Canterbury Tales in 1984. He was a well known scholar of Samuel Johnson, editing Johnsonian Studies which included the much referenced bibliography of Johnsonian studies by James Clifford and Donald Greene. He also edited the commemorative lectures for the bicentennial of Samuel Johnson's death celebrated at Oxford University in 1986 published by Longman.
Magdi Wahba was also a lexicographer producing several lexicographic works including several English-Arabic dictionaries. His Dictionary of Literary Terms published in 1974 and re-issued several times has become an important tool for scholars in comparative literature in the Arab world. In 1989 he published Al-Mukhtar a Concise English-Arabic Dictionary considered as one of the most thorough English Arabic dictionaries. The Mukhtar was followed by An Nafeess published after his death.
He was elected a member of the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo in 1980 and shortly after was elected a member of the Institut d'Egypte founded in 1801 by Bonaparte and became secretary-general of the Institut d'Egypte. He was also an active member of the international committee for philosophy and the social sciences (CIPSH). While he shied away from any political roles (he declined a ministerial position offered by President Sadat), he was a member of the Shura Council (Egyptian Senate) following the footsteps of his father and grandfather Youssef Wahba. He died in London in 1991.
[edit] References
- Baraka, Magda 1998. The Egyptian Upper Class between Revolutions 1919-1952. Reading: Ithaca Press
- Cairo Studies in English. 1990. Essays in Honour of Magdi Wahba. Published by the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Cairo, Cairo.
- Vatikiotis, P.J. 1997. The Middle East: From the end of Empire to the end of the Cold War. London: Routledge
- Wahba, Magdi 1962. Johnsonian Studies. Cairo:Oxford University Press
- Wahba, Magdi 1974. A Dictionary of Literary Terms, English-French-Arabic. Beirut: Librairie du Liban.
- Wahba, Magdi. 1989. Al Mukhtar A Concise English Arabic Dictionary. Beirut: Librairie du Liban
- Wahba, Magdi 1990. Cairo Memories in Studies in Arab History: The Antonius Lectures, 1978-87 edited by Derek Hopwood. London:Macmillan Press
[edit] Obituary notices
- Albert Hourani, The Independent, October 1991
- The Times, October 1991
- Andre Raymond 1991. MIDEO
